... , 2006, pp. 173-191) As with the Taliban, these Saudi-al-Qaida links had their origins in the CIA's covert war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan from 1980. Despite a concerted media campaign, in the UK to deny this, the evidence suggests that British mercenaries recruited through the 23rd Airborne, territorial SAS (otherwise known as R-Squadron) played a major role in this campaign and especially in training future Taliban and al- Qaida. (Carew, 2001) Much of what we know of this campaign comes from the publication of the memoir of one of the British soldiers involved, Philip Anthony Sessargo (writing as Tom Carew) ...

... candidate in 1950 (he was defeated by the sitting Labour MP, a certain George Wigg), and went on to have a successful political career in Canada. He became Solicitor General in Alberta in the 1970s and later Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta. Farran was an authentic war hero, serv-ing in the SAS during the Second World War. He was, as Cesarani shows, very much 'a child of empire', someone 'raised to be an imperial warrior'. It has to be said, however, that his own accounts of his wartime experiences are written very much in the spirit of a 'people's war'. In the aftermath of ...

... , William Whitelaw, Sir Alec Douglas Home, Edward Heath and Sir Michael Fraser. The least familiar name on that list is Sir Michael Fraser; but in Lobster 55 Simon Matthews wrote this of Fraser, who with Thatcher, challenged Heath for the leadership of the Tory Party in 1975: 'The emergence of Fraser – a war-time SAS colleague of Clermont member David Stirling – was curious, as neither prior to this event nor subsequently, did he demonstrate any interest in being leader of the Conservative Party. His candidacy, which allowed Thatcher to look more 'centrist' than she actually was, attracted 16 votes and damaged Heath, who lost to Thatcher by 119 to 130 ...

... Sherman as its first director. Heath did not return to power. In the October 1974 general election Wilson managed to secure a small working majority. Matters soon came to a head in the Conservative Party in February 1975 when a formal challenge was made to Heath's leadership by Margaret Thatcher and Hugh Fraser. The emergence of Fraser – a wartime SAS colleague of Clermont member David Stirling – was curious, as neither prior to this event nor subsequently did he demonstrate any interest in being leader of the Conservative Party. His candidacy, which allowed Thatcher to look more 'centrist' than she actually was, attracted 16 votes and damaged Heath, who lost to Thatcher by 119 to 130. ...

... [10] )Radiation from viewfinders is suggested as the cause. Fred Holroyd vindicated In 1988 Ken Livingstone, then in his second year as an MP, was asking questions in the House of Commons about military operations in Northern Ireland on behalf of former British Army Captain Fred Holroyd. Some of the questions he asked concerned a group of SAS men, with whom Holroyd had worked, who were in Northern Ireland under various covers. (This was significant because, officially, the SAS were not then in Northern Ireland.) In reply to Livingstone's questions the Ministry of Defence confirmed the presence of one of the cover names, 4 Field Survey Troop, Royal Engineers, but ...

... (c ) www.lobster-magazine.co.uk (Issue 51) Summer 2006 Last | Contents | Next Issue 51 America, drugs, corruption and the British national interest In March a member of the SAS resigned from the British Army, stating, inter alia, that he 'didn't join the British army to conduct American foreign policy. ( [1 ] ) My initial reaction was: well, what did he think he would be doing? Where is this independent British foreign policy he thought he was going to serve? There appears to be nothing that the British state won't do to further the interests of American foreign policy. Look at the Lockerbie bombing ...

... . Former high-flying academic turned New Labour minister Baroness Blackstone benefited as a non-exec of the Mott MacDonald engineering group for 'infrastructure' work in the heavily bombed country. Sir Malcolm Rifkind's Armor group picked up an 11m contract, a snip compared to the 246m going to Aegis, whose chief executive is Tim Spicer, the former SAS man who founded Sandline. Am I paranoid enough?Lord Robertson of Port Ellen is on the board of another Iraq contract beneficiary, the Weir Group, one a string of business interests Blair's former Defence Secretary has acquired since he stepped down as secretary-general of Nato. The former George Robertson quickly became deputy chairman of Cable & ...

... ) www.lobster-magazine.co.uk (Issue 51) Summer 2006 Last | Contents | Next Issue 51 Into the Dark Johnston Brown Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2006, 22.99, h/b Out of the blue and into the black Roger Cottrell When Fred Holroyd first made his disclosures regarding the activities of SAS Captain Robert Nairac to Duncan Campbell of The New Statesman in 1984, they were credible because Holroyd was a loyal Army Intelligence Captain with absolutely no sympathies for IRA terrorism. (1 ) Despite efforts on the part of Martin Dillon in The Dirty War (Hutchinson, 1989) to smear Holroyd as an embittered ex-soldier motivated purely ...

... exception of Sammy Smyth who was linked to the UFF for all that the Shankill Road UDA organised an (opportunist) cash collection on the street, in the aftermath of the bombing (McDonald and Cusack, 2004; 78). According to ex-Army Intelligence Captain Fred Holroyd, there is good evidence linking Captain Robert Nairac of the SAS, who was subsequently involved in the Miami Showband massacre, to these bombings, which were later claimed by the UVF in its Fernhill House Declaration of 1994 (Cusack and McDonald, 2000; Holroyd and Burbridge, 1989). This led to scurrilous efforts to smear Holroyd in which Martin Dillon was himself involved (Dillon, 1989; ...